


Evermore

by AccioInvisibilityCloak



Category: Edgar Allan Poe's Murder Mystery Dinner Party (Web Series)
Genre: Bisexuality, F/F, Fluff and Angst, Getting Together, Healthy Polyamory, I Will Go Down With This Ship, Lenore and Annabel both have boyfriends but also want to date each other basically, Love, Poe Party Secret Santa, Polyamory, Queer Themes, Time Travel, lady ghosts in love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-23
Updated: 2016-12-23
Packaged: 2018-09-11 11:56:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,958
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8978704
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AccioInvisibilityCloak/pseuds/AccioInvisibilityCloak
Summary: "No matter how many True Loves Lenore has gone through (a lot), no matter how much she loves people of all genders (also quite a lot)- she cannot deal with having a crush on her best friend’s girlfriend. Who also happens to be her other best friend. What a nightmare."
In which Lenore the Lady Ghost has a crush. And angsts about it a lot. Written for the Poe Party Secret Santa tumblr gift exchange. This is a gift for @cjforpresident, who requested something on "Lenore's future adventures," and who ships Lenore/Annabel as much as I do! I hope you like it, cj! :)





	

*******

             Lenore knows she should be, like, _totes_ pumped to explore the actual Buckingham Palace during the actual height of the _actual_ British monarchy. Everything is gaudy and gold and worth at least a million bucks. It’s basically Lenore’s dream home. But even with HG beside her and a literal queen’s ransom of totes fab jewels and gowns to sort through, she can’t quite manage to feel anything but sad.

“My dear Lenore,” says HG, brow furrowed in concern. “Don’t you like England? I know you can’t stand rain, but I rather thought the Queen’s rooms would have you over the moon.”

“What?” Lenore looks up at him, torn from her totes dreary thoughts. “Oh, no, this stuff is great! I’m _so_ feeling it.” She holds up a necklace dripping with diamonds and tries to look excited. “What do you think of this one?”

“ _Lenore_ ,” HG says, clearly not buying it. “You _can_ talk to me, you know.”

She sighs. “I don’t know, babe. Nothing here _feels_ right. It’s too… I just… this gift just has to be _perfect_ , okay? Annabel Lee deserves the best.”

“It’s okay to be nervous, you know,” HG says with a sly smile. “I know I was, when I first realized I liked you.”

“HG Wells! I do not have a crush on the beautiful- on _Anna Banana!_   I just don’t!” Lenore exclaims, blushing bright red- or, as close as a ghost can get to it, anyway. Mostly she just looks like a much more recently-dead woman than she actually is. But that’s beside the point.

Which is that, no matter how many True Loves she’s gone through (a lot), no matter how much she loves men and women and all other genders (also quite a lot)- she _cannot_ _deal_ with having a crush on her best friend’s girlfriend. Who also happens to be her other best friend. What a nightmare.

             “Whatever you say, my lady,” HG grins, offering his arm. She takes it, allowing him to help her into his time machine, a strange little gold contraption covered in wires and buttons, with a seat just large enough to fit them both if they squeeze. It reminds Lenore of the broken-down old bicycle Edgar keeps stashed away in her attic.

HG climbs into the seat behind Lenore, so that his chest is pressed up against her back and his arms are around her as he reaches for the controls. The large disk on the back of the machine begins to whir, and with the click of a button and a puff of white smoke, the machine sends them spinning away through time again.

             It comes in handy, having a time-travelling ghost for a boyfriend. Especially since the next place he takes them looks a lot like a Parisian boutique in the 1920s. Which is, like, _so_ chic. If Lenore didn’t know better, she might’ve thought she’d finally reached Heaven. If Heaven exists, anyway. She still isn’t entirely sure about that.

“Maybe something from here would do,” HG suggests. “Why don’t you take a look around?”

“How are you so chill about this?” Lenore asks, dropping all pretense. “Aren’t you jealous at all?”

“Oh, _terribly_ ,” HG says cheerfully. “In fact, I’ll make a point to flirt with Oscar next time he visits, to return the favor. Will that convince you that I really am okay with you being polyamorous? I’ve always found monogamy rather overrated anyhow.”

“I don’t know what I did in this life or the next to deserve a boyfriend as great as you, babe,” Lenore sighs, kissing him on the cheek. He grins even wider, the closest thing to a blush he can muster lighting up his deathly pallor too.

It’s thanks to HG that Lenore even knows the words for her orientation. If he hadn’t accidentally time-traveled into the middle of a twenty-first century gay pride parade about six months after Edgar’s fateful party, he never would have discovered that he too was bisexual, and he couldn’t have brought the words back to Lenore, ending her centuries of totes boring queer angst and confusion. Now, over a year post-Murder Party, she’s an openly polyamorous bisexual lady ghost.

Who’ll probably die _again_ before she finds the right Christmas gift for her crush, at this rate. She groans in frustration, causing the terrified cashier to jump out of his seat and flee into the back of the shop. Lenore snorts. Poor dude looked like he’d just seen a… well, you know.

HG keeps an eye out for other customers while Lenore runs her ghostly fingers carefully over thin gold chains and silver bracelets and heavy, carefully set ruby rings. Nothing seems quite right. Not for her Anna Banana.  


*******

            There had been something about that ginger, right from the beginning. Lenore had liked Annabel as soon as meeting her, and had done her best to dissuade Edgar from being too creepy around her. The poor guy just needed a little social guidance. And a lot less access to live ravens.

Lenore and Edgar had barely kept each other standing in the days after the disastrous dinner party that cost both HG and Annabel their lives. The ghost and the poet had moped and cried and fed the ravens and destroyed all evidence that Dead Eddie Dantes had ever been to (and never left) their house. Long talks and depressing poems and lots and lots of cleaning later, Edgar is the closest thing to a brother that Lenore has ever had.

But he isn’t the most fun guy in the world to be around, and Lenore can admit that she was _supes_ relieved when she finally heard back from Krishanti’s sister, who agreed to come to the house as soon as possible to do a spirit cleansing and necromance a few ghosts.

Annabel Lee had been the second ghost the psychic revived, after bringing back Krishanti’s spirit to assist, of course. Annabel had come spinning back into existence and dropped in a heap onto the parlor floor, shaking and crying quietly. The tiny redhead had been disoriented and weak at first, falling into Lenore’s ghostly arms with an adorable little gasp.

Benefits of ghostliness- Lenore didn’t even have to go corporeal in order to hold the other girl. She buried her nose in Annabel’s hair, which still smelled of forget-me-nots and rain and something salty, like the seaside, or perhaps her own ghostly tears. Despite being dead, Annabel had felt warm and solid in Lenore’s arms. She hadn’t ever wanted to let her go.

             The next few weeks were a blur of emotional reunions and angst. Edgar was thrilled to see Annabel again, but was also still deeply depressed over her death, with the result that he had shut himself up in his study, vowing not to come out until he’d written a proper eulogy for the beautiful Annabel Lee.

While she waited, Annabel had asked Lenore to show her the ropes of haunting, and Ghost Lessons had begun.

Lenore had her work cut out for her, because Annabel was the very opposite of frightening. The girl made friends with the house spiders, for crying out loud. Her breathy attempt at a ghostly moan sent a shiver through Lenore’s whole body, settling at her center and warming her through. She wanted… she didn’t know exactly what. But if ghosts could sleep, Lenore is sure she would have heard that moan in her dreams every night since.

            Of course, she had still been mourning for HG. He was the love of her life that week, but he was also something extra special. For all the many tragic lovers Lenore had had, she’d never really had a connection like that with anyone before, not even Guy DeVere. The only rival to her feelings for HG was the friendship that was building and deepening between Lenore and Annabel Lee. Somehow, giving her Ghost Lessons was the only thing (besides HG’s novels, anyway) that could make Lenore smile.

Annabel was just so _cute_ when she was practicing how to be a ghost. She would float around and gently waft the curtains, letting sunlight into Poe’s dreary drawing room. She’d sing little love songs under her breath instead of moaning and rattling chains. She’d even gently stroke Edgar’s cheek and tickle him until he laughed, forsaking Lenore’s plans of haunting him by pulling his chair out from under him and scratching “NEVERMORE” into the surface of his writing desk.

            Eventually, the Ghost Lessons turned to hand-holding and dancing around the large ballroom that Edgar and Lenore have somehow failed to notice until just recently, one of Lenore’s cold hands on Annabel’s tiny waist and the other gripping her shoulder, and again that shuddering in her chest that was almost like a heartbeat.

They’d baked cookies and started a Recently Deceased Book Club to read and discuss the novels of all of Edgar’s party guests. They’d visited the village and Annabel had _tsk_ ’ed disapprovingly while Lenore invisibly threw snowballs at the local children. They’d walked through Edgar’s wilting gardens holding hands, talking of their own childhoods and the dreams they’d had for the lives they could have lived. If they _had_ lived, that is.

In short, Annabel Lee was the sweetest, purest, most beautiful person Lenore had ever known, and it made her want to be sick. At least, that’s what she told herself the feeling was- like all the moths and creepy crawlies in the eaves of her attic were suddenly crawling around inside of her, every time she looked at Annabel. And yet, she couldn’t stay away.

Not even when it was Annabel who was breaking her heart.

*******

             Lenore hadn’t been able to stop thinking about her that afternoon. Only a month after the disastrous dinner party, and Annabel was already almost totally back to being the light of everyone’s life. She kept Edgar and Lenore’s chins up, made an extra effort to master going corporeal long enough to surprise them with fresh red herring soup, and brightened Lenore’s day every time she smiled her annoyingly perfect little smile.

She knew that Annabel was carrying a torch for Edgar, had been since before she… well. Before she became like Lenore. But there was a moment, in Ghost Lessons, that had filled Lenore anew with something like hope. What she was hoping for, she couldn’t say… but she could think it. Oh, yeah, she could _totes_ think it.

“Am I doing it? Oh, Lenore, I think I’m floating!” Annabel exclaimed, stepping off the kitchen chair and into thin air. She’d been slowly getting the hang of moving above the ground, stopping and starting and surprising a laugh or two out of Lenore.

“You’re doing great, Anna Banana, just keep holding my hand,” Lenore said, her fingers intertwined with Annabel’s, keeping her grounded and steady. It’s a strange feeling, holding hands with another ghost. Like trying to grasp onto a cloud with hands made of mist. Firm, but entirely too easy to lose.

Lenore took a deep breath, her other hand against the lacework of her bodice, trying to calm what she could almost swear was a newly beating heart. But it was probably just gas. Ghosts still get that, you know. It’s all the ectoplasm.

“This is the most incredible feeling,” Annabel said happily. “I could almost forget I ever- oh!”

And she was falling, falling with a thump to the cold tile floor, and Lenore groaned as the lighter ghost landed right on top of her.

           “ _Oh_ ,” Lenore repeated softly, Annabel’s long hair tickling her cheek, her lips a hair’s breadth away from Lenore’s own, looking so very soft. Their bodies were pressed up against each other, and she could feel every movement of Annabel’s legs beneath her thick skirts, pressing at Lenore's center, an accidental friction and heat that made both spirits catch their breath.

Annabel Lee was looking down at her, an expression of surprise on her beautiful face, and as Lenore leaned up towards her-

Annabel gasped and floated straight up into the air. And through the ceiling. And was gone.

That left Lenore alone, lying on the ground and _feeling_ Annabel’s absence in every part of her ethereal form. _God,_ she thought to herself. _I am such a colossal idiot._

           A few days later, she walked into the study to borrow another book and found Edgar and Annabel deeply intertwined, sucking face like there was no tomorrow. Which, you know. Ghosts and all. So.

Lenore grabbed her book and got out of there.

And she absolutely did _not_ spend the whole night crying into another one of HG’s novels because one of her crushes was apparently perma-dead and the other was almost definitely downstairs right now lying in Edgar’s bed and lovingly watching him sleep. Nuh-uh. No way. Absolutely not.

*******

            For weeks, Lenore held herself at a careful distance from Annabel Lee, for her own good. She threw herself into keeping the house totes posh and perfect because God knows Edgar was never going to do it, and she did her best not to speak to Annabel outside of Ghost Lessons and polite "excuse me"s when they accidentally phased through the same wall and bumped into each other on their way around the Poe mansion. If the redheaded spirit looked sad and confused and lost without her... well, Lenore tried her best not to notice.

And when HG Wells arrived in the library with his ghostly time machine, Lenore had embarked upon the happiest relationship of her afterlife and tried to pretend that it was enough, that nothing was missing. HG was wonderful, and he always seemed to know when Lenore needed space and when she needed to get out of the house and visit the 1400s in the time machine for some perspective on how good she had it here. 

But visions of Annabel constantly danced in her head- orange tresses and blue-green fabric stretched across perfect little breasts, and the feeling of soft skin and hot breath on skin, slipping through her traitorous brain no matter how hard she tried to make them stop. Annabel's laugh, her hand on Lenore's arm, the way they could talk for hours together, despite their different personalities- she might have a crush, but Lenore was also losing a friend. Her best friend. 

HG held Lenore and listened while she cried. And he took her to one of those Pride parades in the time machine. It helped, a little.

*******

           “Lenore, I have to tell you something.” Annabel hovered in the doorway, uncertain. Lenore was standing in front of her bedroom mirror, testing different hairdos for a sock-hop date in 1956 with HG that evening and determinedly not looking at her uninvited guest.

“Make it quick, Anna Banana. I have to look totes hot for my date tonight. I might even meet some cute girls in the soda shop to flirt with while HG picks up the tab, it’s gonna be so great!” Lenore gushed, attempting to make her hair flip upwards at the ends like in the magazines HG brought back from the future. It didn’t work.

“It’s just… I really miss you. And I’ve been doing a lot of thinking,” Annabel said nervously, staring at the floor. Her hands were clasped in front of her, but her fingers were still fidgeting like mad.

“And?” Lenore says, only half-listening.

“I’m bisexual. Just like you. And I think I have… feelings. For someone. I… Lenore?” Annabel reached out to her, concerned. “Lenore, you look like you may faint! Are you alright?”

“You… I… But Edgar!” Lenore spluttered, her hands frozen in her thick dark curls, her mouth hanging open in a totes undignified way. Honestly, the things this girl does to her.

“I love Edgar,” Annabel said, and it cut at Lenore like a sliver of ice. “I do… but it gets a bit exhausting, being with someone who thinks I can do no wrong. He loves me, but he didn’t really get that I was _human_ , at first.”

“We’re working on that,” Lenore said, suppressing a smirk. Edgar does mean well after all.

“Well, anyway, we had our first real fight about it yesterday,” Annabel admitted. "I told him I was more than a pretty face, and we agreed we didn't have to be exclusive."

“Is that what that was? And here I thought it was the ravens making all that racket,” Lenore said.

“The point is, I was bi before I ever met Edgar, and I loved him and… and _Eddie_ at the same time. That… that means something,” Annabel breathed, one hand on her stomach like she was going to be sick just from uttering her murderer’s name. The dark stain of fingerprints permanently bruised into her ghostly neck stood out in stark relief, and Lenore realized she was staring again.

She wanted to look away, but Annabel was suddenly right there, standing nose to nose with her in front of the mirror, the two of them a vision in faded blue and white.

“It means,” Annabel said, so softly Lenore could barely hear, “that it’s okay for me to want to do this.”

She leaned in, soft lips skittering against Lenore’s own, like butterfly wings against the empty sky. Her hand found Lenore’s, and squeezed. “I’m sorry. About… well. All of it, I suppose. I should have been kinder to you, in the meanwhile. I hope you can forgive me.”

And then she was gone, leaving Lenore to ponder. And find HG. And convince him to roll the time machine back a couple decades. It was time for a grand gesture.

                                                                                                                                *******                         

          So that’s the reason Lenore is standing, partially corporeal, in the middle of this dusty old jewelry shop in the 1920s in Paris, trying to deny her feelings for the most beautiful girl in this afterlife. Because, like, declaring her love for her best friend’s girl feels impossible enough already, even if they are both poly. Without the piece de resistance, she’ll never pull this off.

“HG!” Lenore calls. “Any ideas?”

Her boyfriend looks up from a display of gaudy old bracelets. “What about something gold?”

“With Annabel’s skin tone? Forget it,” Lenore scoffs, not even stopping to let HG tease her for admitting it already. “No, I need sapphire, I need topaz, I need pale blue diamonds and silver chains… I need _that_!”

She’s pointing eagerly at the most perfect and delicate piece of jewelry she’s ever seen in her whole afterlife- and she has an excellent collection, if she says so herself.

“It is quite lovely,” HG says admiringly, lifting the piece out of its case for her. “You really are the best girlfriend ever, you know. I can’t wait to see _my_ Christmas gift!”

“You’ll wait til December 25th like the rest of us non-time-machine-having bums, mister. I’m not breathing a word before then.” Lenore seizes the necklace and HG’s arm triumphantly, and kisses her boyfriend on the cheek. “Now, my dearest. Take us home!”

“As you wish,” HG winks, and they’re off towards the time and place where they belong.

           On Christmas Day, when Edgar is nodding off by the fire and HG is playing with the new 1990s-era microwave oven Lenore got him, the two ghost girls finally get their moment. As Lenore pulls Annabel from the room, she catches HG's eye, who winks at her and mouths, "Good luck!" 

The girls sneak off to the ballroom, their special place. Lenore runs a finger nervously along the jewelry box in the pocket of her gown.

           She eagerly accepts Annabel’s gift— copies of J. Sheridan Le Fanu’s _Carmilla_ and Virginia Woolf’s _Orlando_ to put some more queer rep on her literature shelves, thank goodness— and sweeps her up into a hug.

“Lenore, I want you to know- I may be dead, but I’ve never been so happy as I am here,” Annabel confesses, pressing her face into Lenore’s bare shoulder where her plunging neckline doesn’t touch, the sensation cold and warm at the same time. “Living with you and Edgar and HG, there’s nowhere else I’d rather be.”

“R-really?” Lenore murmurs. “I could think of a few places- ow! Anna-B!” She rubs her arm where the other ghost just elbowed her. “I was kidding!”

“Well, I wasn’t,” Annabel says, in the closest thing to a grouchy tone Lenore has ever heard her take. It makes her laugh, and Annabel primly wrinkles her nose in protest.

“I’m sorry,” says Lenore, genuinely contrite. “Can I give you something that might help make it better?”

Annabel keeps pouting, which Lenore takes as a yes. She moves towards Annabel and whispers, “Close your eyes.”

          The ghost girl does so, shivering deliciously when she feels Lenore come close, and she puts out her hands to catch her gift. Lenore wants to take the time to drink in every part of Annabel, her fluttering eyelashes and pale pink lips and blushing porcelain cheeks. Temptation proves too much, and she leans close to drop a kiss on the very tip of Annabel’s perfectly pointed nose, making her giggle.

“Okay, open them.” Lenore steps back, grinning already. Annabel gasps.

           In her hands is a perfect little cameo necklace, the creamy silhouette of a beautiful swanlike maiden, set against a backdrop of pale green to match her dress. Annabel turns the cameo over to read the word inscribed on the back: “ _Evermore_.”

Tears spring to Annabel’s eyes, and she’s completely lost for words. She holds out the necklace to Lenore, whose heart sinks at what she thinks is a rejection- until she realizes what Annabel is actually asking for.

The cameo is a relic from a different time, so when Lenore and HG brought it back to the present, it became a kind of ghost itself. Annabel Lee won’t even have to go corporeal in order to wear it always.

Lenore ties the thick black ribbon around Annabel’s neck, hiding her bruises from sight. Realizing this, Annabel starts weeping in earnest. She’s free from them now, free from what they represent. They can’t hurt her anymore. “It’s so _beautiful_.”

“Yeah,” Lenore says, cheesy though it is. “You are.”

“Lenore…” Annabel’s eyes go huge and hopeful and terrified. Lenore tenderly takes her face in her hands, pulling her close.

“Annabel Lee,” Lenore whispers, wiping away her tears with a gentle thumb. “Will you be my girlfriend?”

           “Dear Lenore,” she says. “You and Edgar are like the two chambers of my heart, beating in tandem. You make me feel _alive_   again, and I love you both so much I don’t know what I’d do without either one of you.”

“I know,” Lenore smiles. “It’s like… ‘ _We loved with a love that was more than love, in our kingdom by the sea.’_ That’s how I feel about you and HG. So much love, I can hardly stand it. It’s pretty gross.”

“My answer is yes. I’d be honored,” Annabel says, and pulls her into an embrace. “I’d be so happy to be girlfriends with you, Lenore the Lady Ghost.”

           “So the real question is… can I kiss you again? Pretty please?” Lenore asks, beaming as she pulls back slightly to look her new girlfriend in the face. (She can’t wait to tell HG!) “Because, honestly, I’ve been _dying_ to do that, ever since we- _mmm_!”

She’s cut off, of course, by the welcome sensation of Annabel’s lips on hers, soft and sweet, mouths opening and tongues flitting out to meet each other, explore each other, at last. Annabel is real, solid, almost _warm,_ as she clings to Lenore. And it’s just- well. This is _totes_ the best Christmas Lenore’s _ever_   had, dead or alive.

This is her very own miracle- Lenore and her Annabel Lee. Together, for evermore.

*******

**Author's Note:**

> Historical Note: The real-life HG Wells was definitely not monogamous. He and his second wife actually had an open marriage and he had a lot of affairs. So he'd probably be pretty chill with Lenore being polyamorous. I'm pretty sure he was straight in real life, but I can do whatever I want with the Poe Party version of him! :)
> 
> Also, I am bisexual, but I'm not polyamorous, so if anyone reading this *is* polyamorous and has constructive criticism of the way I handled that, it would be appreciated. Thanks! Also also, I should clarify that bisexuality is inclusive of trans and nonbinary people, and I'm sorry for defining Lenore's bisexuality as "both men and women". I know it's more complex than that.
> 
> Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays, friends! Thank you for reading! <3


End file.
